On the Future of ACM | October 2013 | Communications of the ACM

peter.suber's bookmarks 2013-10-06

Summary:

"ACM membership is growing, but SIG membership has declined and hovers around 40% of ACM membership. The current role of conferences in computing research (a main SIG activity) is being questioned, and the open access movement is changing community expectations regarding how publications should be financed and distributed. At the same time, technology developments are leading to new visions of how researchers and professionals interact: social media, virtual conferences, and "open research" in which artifacts such as data and software are archived and exchanged. What seems to be emerging is a richly interconnected world, filled with services, where everything is expected to be free. Given this picture, it is not clear that ACM's traditional products and services, as well as the current models and means for financing them, will provide the necessary resources to address these looming challenges. As a result, senior ACM leaders and staff will be holding a two-day retreat this November to take a long, hard look at the association. At this retreat we will: unpack and understand ACM's current business model(s); understand the challenges and forces at play for each model; assess the strengths/weaknesses of each model relative to emerging challenges and risks; and explore new thinking and new business models for the richly interconnected set of current and future ACM activities, programs, and products. The main goal of the retreat is to answer the question: How must ACM restructure its portfolio, and the business models that support it, to stay relevant and viable in the future? ..."

Link:

http://m.cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/10/168180-on-the-future-of-acm/fulltext

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) ยป peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.business_models oa.cs oa.societies oa.consultations oa.acm

Date tagged:

10/06/2013, 10:17

Date published:

10/06/2013, 06:17